Would Israeli unity government advance Trump’s plan?

Likud prefers a broad coalition. Only Blue and White could provide it.

Donald Trump ,Jared Kushner and Binyamin Netanyahu

Yossi Beilin writes in Al Monitor, “The government that will stand following the April 9 election will quite likely be a national unity government joining a populist party with shades of liberalism and a right-wing party with shades of racism. Until the last-minute it will be hard to predict which one would win the necessary support to ensure the prime minister’s office for itself.”

“It depends on the party’s ability to form a bloc of at least 61 mandates (a clear Knesset majority) to oppose granting the prime minister’s role to the head of the other camp. A tie could also lead to a rotation between the leader of the Blue and White party, Benny Gantz, and the leader of the Likud. We can assume that this will not be Prime Minister and Likud head Benjamin Netanyahu. After all, Gantz had promised not to join a government with him in light of the attorney general’s declared intention to indict him.”

“The important milestones of the election cycle are already behind us: The political map was shaped when the parties submitted their list of candidates for the Knesset, and the attorney general announced his intention to bring Netanyahu to trial, following a hearing. Two large lists will vie in the political arena, and it is expected that Gantz’s party will be slightly larger than the Likud, and that the election will be decided by the small parties that would or would not pass the vote threshold of four Knesset seats.”

“The two large parties are deciding whether to undertake a wide effort to recruit every possible vote to their camp in order not to lose votes to the small parties, or whether to undertake an opposite effort, to accept a loss of mandates to the small parties in their bloc in order to ensure that they pass the vote threshold and would be partners in the next coalition.” (more…)